PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
Hello Everyone:
Plans are in high gear for our 8th Annual Spring
Meeting and Benefit
Auction to be held Saturday April 4th, 2009 at
the War Memorial in
Johnstown, PA. By now every member should have
received a letter with an invitation to the
Spring Meeting and a donation form. We hope you
will dig deep and contribute an item or items to
the Association for the auction. This meeting is
FREE to all active members and a FREE booth ( on
a first come first serve basis) is available to
any member donating to the auction. Please
remember that the monies raised at this auction
keep our dues low and fund our lobbying efforts
at the state capital along with our member
services. So mark your calendars and plan to
come to Johnstown and enjoy the day!
Many of you may be wondering why we are not
going back to the Altoona Blair County
Convention Center. I must admit it was a
beautiful facility and would have served us well
for along time. The management was too hard to
work with and the cost was extremely high. I had
many conversations with their sales director but
could not get them to adjust to what our board
felt was a fair and reasonable cost for the
facilities in the future. The city of Johnstown
has always been very interested in our business,
at a fair price, so back to Johnstown we go.
Now that the Top 30 Sale and Midwest Select
Sales are over many people have been asking me
what I thought about the sales. I believe they
did very well in this current economy. They were
solid auctions where some consignments brought
top dollar and some consignments favored the
buyers. Overall the total of the auctions were
strong.
As far as our end market many Hunting Ranches
got of to a slow start in 2008 and then finished
up with banner years. People just had to go
shoot a big deer. We need to remember that over
$15 billion dollars are spent annually in
pursuit of the whitetail deer in North America.
Now that our industry has 250"+ deer available
to hunt we can add the World Wide Big Game
revenues to those $15 billion dollars. Each year
we just need a small percentage of those total
dollars to shift to our industry and the numbers
are huge. What a tremendous end market we have
to tape. I have said it now for twenty years and
my attitude hasn't changed. Our industry can do
nothing but grow. There will be economic ups and
downs but our greatest enemy will be legislation
and regulations that will negatively impact our
industry. So make sure you support the PDFA and
NADeFA so these new administrations don't take
away our rights to raise and hunt deer on our
lands.
I would like to close by thanking all of you who
did something to help
the Association move forward in 2008. The PA
Deer Farmers Association is viewed across the
country as one of the leading state associations
in the deer industry. It wasn't done by any one
person but collectively by each and every one of
us. So let's keep the ball
rolling and get involved in the upcoming Spring
Meeting. See you in
Johnstown, PA on April 4th, 2009.
Have a great Spring,
Dave Griffith, President
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UPCOMING EVENTS: |
2009 Scheduled meeting dates
Friday, March 27
Thursday, May 14
Thursday, June 25
Thursday, August 20
Friday & Saturday, September
11 & 12 (Fall Sale)
Friday, October 16
Friday, November 20
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